Working Abroad: Your Options in Thailand
Gaining employment in Thailand as a non-Thai national normally means occupying an English teaching position. While there are lucrative English teaching jobs in institutions like Chulalongkorn or Thammasat, the vast majority of such positions offer little pay.
In fact, don’t expect a leading salary for any job requiring skills, teaching or not. It does sound all bad, but actually if you intend to live in the Land of Smiles for an extended period of time, such poorly paid jobs aren’t too much of a problem since the cost of living is very low in Thailand, the infrastructure is the best in South East Asia, it’s a safe country, and you can still rise up the career ladder because you can get a great work experience in Thailand.
Yet there is an obscured dilemma that slowly presents itself over time: you’ve been living in the Land of Smiles for 1 or 2 years, you’ve gained good work experience, your wage isn’t great, but so what : things are cheap in Thailand so that’s OK. BUT, guess what? You’ve been unable to save much money while you’ve been living in Thailand. Airfares look incredibly expensive compared to your salary. The price of things back home starts to frighten you when thinking about your Thai salary. This dilemma troubles many non-Thai nationals in Thailand a few years after starting work there. Long- term future plans are often put on hold because you don’t have the nest egg of money to put into action any long-term plan like buying a home, getting married, or even purchasing a car.
So, key point : when considering staying in Thailand, also consider that you will find it very challenging to bank substantial amounts of cash when considering the prices of your home country.
Even so, not everything revolves around earning dosh, does it? You can have a great time in Thailand, perhaps learn the Thai language, make friends, go travelling around the country in your freetime, and acquire some worthwhile work experience.
So what kind of jobs can you obtain in the Land of Smiles? Looking at jobs-quality.com – a site listing jobs in and around the Chonburi and Bangkok districts of Thailand – they have listed HR jobs in Thailand, Administration job positions, sales executive job positions, safety officer work placements etc. Basically the sort of job positions you’d discover in your home country. While the majority of these work placements may be seeking a Thai speaker, you will still find English-speaking requirements for work placements within many multinational organizations established in Thailand.
